


Rising Again

by qodarkness



Series: The Drowned God's Champion [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-11-02 09:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20698097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qodarkness/pseuds/qodarkness
Summary: For gingersprite. Because I read I’ll Crawl Home To Her and got an idea for a bit and then realised I didn’t have a plot, so decided it was far more simple to offer this to gingersprite as a companion piece to that story.So this is how Theon persuaded the Drowned God to let him rise again.It’s also a bit of Theonsa week (meeting the Return theme).I hope you like it, gingersprite





	Rising Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gingersprite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingersprite/gifts).
  * Inspired by [i'll crawl home to her](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695670) by [gingersprite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingersprite/pseuds/gingersprite). 

He refused to kneel before the Drowned God, no matter how bleakly the god scowled at him. He had knelt over and over again while he lived and he was done with it.

“I have been a sacrifice since I was eight years old and torn from my mother’s arms,” Theon told the god (who looked remarkably like his Uncle Aeron, if Uncle Aeron had been a thunderclap, a storm cloud, a tidal wave, a ravening sea). “A sacrifice to the Starks, to the North, to my father’s ambitions, to Ramsay Bolton, for Sansa Stark and to Euron Greyjoy and for Yara and for Winterfell and to the Night King to save the world. Now that I am dead, you have claimed me. You are my god and I am your sacrifice. I am Ironborn and I am sea and salt, stone and steel. You have made me into a whetted knife, a tempered blade, a blazing arrow. Do not waste what you have made in the Halls of the dead.”

The Drowned God frowned at him, from his place upon his throne, which was water or stone or both or neither, a strange unsettling seething mass roiling beneath him. “You died far from the sea, Theon Greyjoy,” said the God. 

“I did,” Theon replied. 

“You were sent back to me. Down the White Knife to the sea. With your Ironborn. You came to me on the flow, all of you, tumbling into the depths. Into my arms. Into my halls. Your men await you in the halls. Honoured heroes all.”

Theon inclined his head, politely. “I am pleased,” he replied. “They were brave men all and they deserve a place of honour at your table.”

“And you, Theon Greyjoy,” said the Drowned God. “You would have a place at my high table. You were far from the sea when you died, but your death was a great thing. It rang through my halls, a Prince of the Iron Islands standing against the dead and the dark and the cold, standing against the endless winter. You held the fate of the world in your hand, Theon Greyjoy, and you did not falter. Yours was a great death, a hero’s death, to be sung down the ages. You would sit at my right hand and your men would sing with you and for all the days of the world you would be honoured.”

Theon bowed his head. “I thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “But I do not want that.”

The Drowned God frowned and his throne roiled beneath him, like a kraken’s coils waking. “You do not want honour? You do not want eternal bliss? You do not want to carouse forever in my halls?”

“I do not,” replied Theon.

“What do you want?” asked the Drowned God.

“I want _ her_,” said Theon, and the last word thrummed with a sudden power.

The god frowned again. “She is not mine,” he said, eventually. “She belongs to other gods, the old gods and the new. I cannot make her yours.”

Theon shook his head. “I don’t want you to make her mine.” For the first time, he looked nervous, his eyes darting around the great audience hall of the god, until they settled back on him. “She’s in danger.”

The Drowned God looked at him steadily, leaned back in his throne. “You know that?” he asked.

Theon shrugged. “Yes,” he said simply. “I don’t know how, but I know. She is alive and she rides to her death.”

“She does,” confirmed the Drowned God. “That is where the world heads. That they will die and the golden queen and my King will live.” The Drowned God looked suddenly discontented at those last few words. “I would know how you know that.”

Theon shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I just know that I woke in your halls and I knew that she is in danger.”

The Drowned God’s head raised for a moment, his eyes looking at something that Theon could not see (and was glad he could not, because human eyes and souls were not made for such things). 

“You saved her,” said the god, looking through the past. “You fled with her. You flew with her.”

“Yes,” said Theon.

“You would have gone back to your death to save her.”

“Yes,” said Theon.

“To,” and the Drowned God, if a storm cloud could show sympathy, gave Theon a sympathetic look, “worse than death.”

“Yes,” whispered Theon.

“You knew what he would do to you and you would have gone back to that to save her.” 

“Yes,” whispered Theon.

“They accepted your offering,” said the Drowned God. “Her gods, the old and the new. They accepted what you would have done for her and they saved you. And they took a small piece of you, gave you a small piece of her. To complete the offering. That is why you know where she is. Now that you are not made deaf by the noise of your flesh.” 

Theon nodded, accepting it, because it was so obviously true. 

“What if I do not want to send you back into the world?” asked the Drowned God. “I am your god. I am not required to listen to your wishes. You could carouse forever in my halls.”

“I do not want that,” said Theon again. “Not if I know that she is in danger. If she is lost. If,” and his face suddenly distorted with a future grief, “she is dead. I do not want to know. Send me back to where I was before I woke in your halls.”

“To the black and the nothing?” asked the god. 

Theon nodded. “It is better than knowing,” he replied. “I died and there was nothing. Nothing until I woke here. That is better.”

“And if I send you back,” said the Drowned God. “Would you kill my king to save this Wolf of the North?”

Theon nodded. “The Iron Islands have done you ill,” he said. “Balon and Euron, they were poor kings. They do ill in the world, the work of the Storm God, wrestling against you. The Iron Islands fail and shrink and lessen because of kings like them. You would do better without him.”

“And in his place? What do you offer me, Theon Greyjoy?”

“I would bring you Queen Yara Greyjoy, first of her name. She will be reborn in your arms in glory and she will bring you strong men and happy women and fat babies and she will make the Iron Islands great again. And when she comes to your halls, she will come in clouds of glory, for she will honour you all the days of her life.” Theon’s voice rang suddenly through the Drowned God’s halls, the ring of truth and trust. Yara would be first of their Queens, he knew, he _ knew_, and she would be one of the greatest of the Ironborn. If her brother came back to her. If the Drowned God held faith with the Iron Islands. 

The Drowned God inclined his head, considering the man before him. “You are lost,” he said, suddenly. “Your body is no more. Only scraps made it to the sea, to my halls. I will have to remake you. All that was done to you will be lost.”

“But I won’t forget it,” Theon looked at the floor. “I will never forget it.”

“I will build you from the sea,” said the Drowned God. “Men are born from the sea that lives inside their mothers, but you will come from the sea that your body was lost in. You will come back to me when you die, Theon Greyjoy. Whenever that may be.”

“Let me save her,” said Theon. “Let her be saved and Yara be saved and I would live in your halls forever at your side. I would be alone forever if the Wolf of the North would live and be happy again.”

The Drowned God looked, if such a thing were possible, _ embarrassed_. He turned his head to one side, cleared his throat fussily. “Well,” he said. “It’s not like I don’t talk to her gods, the old and the new. Sometimes we can… negotiate.”

Theon grinned suddenly. “A bargain?” he asked. 

“A bargain,” replied the Drowned God and held out his arm. Theon reached forward, gripped the god’s elbow and they shook on it. 

“Do well for me, Theon Greyjoy,” said the Drowned God and then the kraken erupted from the throne beneath and bore Theon up into the light. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a bit of fun. It’s been a bit of a rough (but good) week at work, so it was nice to write something creative, rather than all about the work.


End file.
